


The Immunity Syndrome -- a'Tha

by Cheree_Cargill



Series: Glimpses of a Life [48]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 08:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13232169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheree_Cargill/pseuds/Cheree_Cargill
Summary: The a'Tha is the Vulcan concept of the matrix to which a person's spirit returns.  But Spock is certain that all the Vulcans aboard the Intrepid are in limbo because there was no Keeper to return their Katra to Vulcan.





	The Immunity Syndrome -- a'Tha

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: The Star Trek characters are the property of Paramount Studios, Inc. The story contents are the creation and property of Cheree Cargill and is copyright (c) 2017 by Cheree Cargill. This story is Rated PG.

_Stardate: 4310.8, Personal Log. First Officer Spock recording._

 

I meditate throughout all my off-duty hours and still I do not understand. I cannot comprehend the reality of meeting death without preparation for the continuance of the soul. Who was there to save them? Who could have been the Keepers of the Katra for them … for all of them?

We had just turned toward Starbase 6 when we found it. The _Intrepid_. What was left of it, anyway. The hull was largely intact, but breached in several places, the result of being crushed by the internal pressure of the giant creature we had destroyed. We had been blown clear before it did the same to us, but the other ship was not so fortunate, having been drawn in long before we were.

The hull breaches had caused the ship to decompress, all of its atmosphere jetting out into space. Was that when all of the crew had died? Is that why it was so sudden and I felt their minds crying out in astonishment and terror? At least it was mercifully quick for them.

Not so for the inhabitants of the Gamma 7A system. The amoeba creature had sucked all the energy from the billions of humanoids and animals and plant life on those planets. It pulled in the energy of their power plants and atomics and anything else it could tap. I believe it would have attempted to drain their sun if had not reached reproduction mass already. But once it had split and then split again and again and again, each of its new daughter cells searching for their own energy needs, would they have quickly found their food source in that stellar furnace?

The thought is too frightening to contemplate. It would have been as Dr. McCoy postulated, a virus invading our galaxy and multiplying quickly enough to one day become the body and we the virus.

But it is of the _Intrepid_ that I speak now. Starfleet had bowed to the increasing numbers of non-Humans in staffing the ship solely with Vulcans. We are an old spacefaring people. It was we who were there when Humans took their first step into warp technology. Indeed, we were there when Humans trod their planet by foot and animal power and carts and primitive machines. We watched as they made their first tracks in the dust of their natural satellite. But we never interfered until permissible by our own laws.

Our ships explored and colonized our section of the galaxy. It was a step backward for us to accept one of their starships when our own were much superior, but it was done in the interest of interstellar amity. They needed us more than we needed them. Still, Captain Saakon led his crew in the spirit of which it was intended and had accepted the assignment to investigate the mysterious power drain in the region of Gamma 7A. The puzzle of the great zone of darkness would have drawn them to enter it just as we had.

We found the captain slumped in his command chair, the bodies of his bridge crew sprawled near their stations. The blotched and broken corpses were terrible to behold. We had gone over in spacesuits to the airless hulk and I was glad that the helmet hid my shock and revulsion and horror. Four hundred and thirty men and women. No, not correct. Some had been blown out into space through the hull breaches when the ship explosively decompressed. And we found one pregnant woman in sickbay, her child dead as well. The final body count was four hundred and twelve, if you count the unborn baby … and we did.

Afterwards, Captain Kirk had called me to his cabin for consultation. "What should we do about the bodies, Spock? What are your people's beliefs about this? Do we have the bodies returned to their families or give them a proper burial here?"

I thought for a moment. "There are as many belief systems on my planet as there are on yours. But one universal belief is that the _katra_ … the soul, if you will … is generally taken by a holder and returned to the vault of the family, to be joined back into the _a'Tha --_ the Whole -- until it returns to a new body."

"Reincarnation?" Kirk asked, looking puzzled.

"Not exactly, but it is a close analogy. However, all of the people on the _Intrepid_ died without such benefit. There are no _katras_ to salvage there. These people's souls are lost. Returning the body to the family without returning the _katra_ would be meaningless. As that is the case, I believe that a disposition here where they died would be the best we could do for them."

Kirk rubbed his chin with a forefinger and let his gaze fall thoughtfully to his desktop. "Yes. I'm sure you are right, Mr. Spock. Thank you for your advice. Would you see to the arrangements?"

"I will gladly do so, sir." I turned to leave his cabin and attend to this unhappy duty.

* * *

The _Enterprise_ had backed away to a safe distance from the _Intrepid_ and gone to station keeping. Kirk sat in the command chair and said quietly, "Mr. Chekov, arm photon torpedo and prepare to fire."

"Aye, sir," the navigator said and his hands moved quickly over his control board. "Ready, sir."

"Attention!" I said and every person on the bridge rose and stood facing the main view screen. On it, against a background of stars, the mangled hull of the starship floated, carrying its cargo of lifeless forms, once a vibrant crew of scientists and explorers and engineers.

Softly, Captain Kirk said, "Fire."

Chekov reached down and pressed a button on his console. As the flash of light that was the photon torpedo streaked towards its target, respectful silence reigned on the bridge. Then the brilliant explosion of impact and what was left of the ship and its crew was no more. We remained at attention for a minute more and I heard a muffled sob coming from Uhura's direction, then the Captain murmured, "May they rest in peace. Lady and gentlemen, at ease. Return to your duties. Mr. Chekov, lay in a course for Starbase 6, warp four."

"Aye, Keptin," Chekov replied in a subdued manner and life went back to normal for us.

* * *

_Stardate: 4315.3, Personal Log. First Officer Spock recording._

 

I had a dream. My grandfather, Skon, and I were walking along a parapet at his holding in the mountains east of ShiKahr. I had been there often as a child and it was very familiar to me. In my dream I could not tell whether I was a child or an adult. It seemed to shift back and forth.

Our red sun was sinking behind the mountains to the west and the hot wind off Sas-a-Shar ruffled our hair and billowed our robes around us as we walked. Overhead, dense flocks of the little birds that roosted in the cliffs circled and prepared to settle down as darkness fell. Around us night flowers were beginning to open and I could smell their perfume. Other small creatures that came out after sundown were beginning to show themselves.

Skon spoke in his deep gruff voice. "What do see around you, Spock?" he asked.

I related to him the various things I have described, and he responded, "And what do you feel?"

"Feel, Grandfather?" I asked, puzzled. "I do not understand."

"The birds, the flowers, the animals, the plants? What is it about them? What do you _feel_?"

I grasped his meaning. "Life, Grandfather. They are all alive."

He stretched his arm out toward the lights of ShiKahr. "And there? What do you feel?"

"Again, life, Grandfather," I answered. "There are nearly a million people in the city and they are all alive."

He held his hand upward. "And there?"

I looked up at the stars beginning to appear in the darkening sky. "The stars are not alive, Grandfather. They are merely balls of flaming gases."

Abruptly, he turned and thumped me soundly on the top of my skull. It was something he was want to do in the face of ignorance or willfulness. "Is there any life in _there_ , Grandson? You know what I mean. What is _out there_?"

I was rubbing the sore spot he had inflicted. "Do you mean the planets around those stars, Grandfather? The inhabitants? Of course, they are alive."

"And what does all of this entail? All of it? _All_ of it!"

"Life! Life! Is that what you want me to answer?"

"I want you to reach beyond the limited imagination your father has visited upon you. Use a bit of your mother's intuition." Skon was gazing hard at me. "It is the Whole, Grandson. All of it. It is the great _a'Tha_ that we revere but do not understand. Do you think that all of that Whole is made just for Vulcans? No, each life, no matter how strange to us, is a part of the Whole. Each life comes from and returns to the _a'Tha_. It does not need a ritual to do so. Do you not recall what your mother's people say about their dead? 'From dust I came and to dust I return.' Others understand that their soul, their _katra_ , is not lost but will come back in another form. Is that not what we believe as well?"

"Yes, Grandfather," I answered, beginning to understand. "But how does the _katra_ continue if it is not returned to its home?"

For a second I thought he was going to thump me again and I flinched. Instead, he stared down at me with his blazing eyes. "Does that lizard need the ritual when it dies? Does that nightflitter or that t'sika bird?"

"But those things do not have a _katra_ to save, Grandfather," I argued.

"And you know this for certain? You have communed with these creatures and can say for sure?"

"No, but--"

"Spock, the ceremony of the _katra_ was created for Vulcans by Vulcans to ease the suffering of the living. If there is time to salvage the soul and return it, so much the better. But it is not necessary. The souls of all things find their way back to the Whole without benefit of our words or deeds."

"But my father has taught me that the ritual--"

"Why is a ritual so important to you? Or to Sarek? Because of his fear that he will lose you. It is not logical, Spock. You serve in a life that has you living on a needle's point from day to day as to whether you will live or die. Should you die on a mission and be lost, will someone come to do a ritual for you?"

I felt ashamed at his impeccable logic and the lack of my own. "I would like to believe that a friend would serve as my Keeper and return my _katra_ to Vulcan, but it is unlikely that such would be the case. I am the only Vulcan on my ship."

"And would this prevent your soul from returning to the Whole that surrounds us?"

"No, Grandfather," I answered meekly.

"Then do not worry about Saakon and the others aboard the _Intrepid_. That is what has been keeping you awake at night. They are within the _a'Tha_ and are not lost. Ease your mind and return your thoughts to the present. There are many tasks yet ahead of you, Spock. Turn your attention to the living. When it is your turn, you will rejoin the Whole as I and all your ancestors have done. Do not waste your time tormenting yourself about the dead. They are at peace, as you should be."

Without warning, he hit his knuckle on the crown of my skull again, but more gently this time and then laid his hand on my hair, almost in a caress. "You have a good head on your shoulders, child. Use it occasionally."

At that point I awoke with my grandfather's words still ringing in my mind. Taking a deep breath, I realized that the tension that had tightened my shoulders and neck for the past few days had gone and I felt relaxed for the first time since we approached Gamma 7A.

Closing my eyes, I felt the Whole wrapped around me like a blanket and I slept once more.

 

THE END

 


End file.
